Sen. Susan Collins isn't afraid to trap the Mama Grizzly

By
Jonathan Capehart

Many of you probably think my Republican political crush is Rep. Paul Ryan (Wisc.), since I've written lots (not all nice) about his "Road Map for America" and how he's the only GOPer willing to put his ideas up for public debate. And you'd be wrong. My real Republican crush is the plain-spoken and tough Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who shows why with a bold swipe at the Mama Grizzly herself, Sarah Palin.

In an interview with the Kennebec Journal today, Collins said she didn't expect Palin to run for president because the glare of celebrity is more alluring than governing. "I think she likes being a celebrity commentator for Fox and a speaker and being able to provide for her family," Collins said. "I think that life appeals to her. It's a lot easier to charge people up than to actually govern."

At least Collins (and Rep. Spencer Bauchus of Alabama) has the courage to say publicly what many of her fellow Republicans don't dare say without hiding behind anonymity. We know how much Palin hates that. But my colleague Kathleen Parker (another right-leaning fave of mine) reveals today that the party faithful are still whispering about her. They are crippled by a "fresh terror" that Palin will actually run for president. They are saying she's "dangerous," because, as Parker writes, Palin would not only "drive away other Republican candidates, but she would most certainly lose a national election. Thus, the GOP finds itself in a pickle: How to shed itself of this attractive nuisance?"

Democrats, still licking their wounds from the 2010 midterms, are praying Palin gets in the race and that the GOP fails to stop her from grabbing the nomination. Unlike Parker, I'm with Colllins on this one. Palin won't run for president. As she learned after quitting the Alaska governorship two years, seven months and 23 days into a four-year term, the money, attention and adulation are much better when you're not encumbered by accountability.

I don't think she'll run, and I don't want her to run. While I do not consider myself a Democrat, I always vote Democratic because of my belief in personal choice for love and reproduction, and, since we're a two-party system, that means my only choice is Democratic. Or to not vote, but that's undemocratic (in the democracy sense, not the Party sense).

The reason I don't want her to run is precisely the reason why I don't think she'll run: She loves the celebrity, as mentioned in this article. I'd rather have a POTUS that focuses on governing, too, so I guess I have something in common with a Republican Senator. I'd also rather not have a POTUS who is a talking head for ANY "news" organization. I'd feel like that kind of person is too indebted to those running the station he/she would have previously worked for.

Either way, 2012 will prove to be interesting. And I'm guessing it will not be interesting in a positive way. I'm predicting all-out violence and even more disgraceful wars of words and lies.

Only in America could Sarah Palin be a serious Presidential candidate. What other country would take someone so aggressively unqualified in terms of intellect, experience and temperament and propel her to one of the most powerful people in the country. There is also a "meanness" about Palin that is striking; she tweets and comments from her perch on Fox News taking cheap, unsubstantiated shots at her enemies (Dems and Repubs alike), but gets hugely offended when she is challenged. She refuses to be interviewed, challenged or put into any situation where she needs to defend her views with logic and fact. And yet a large part of the country want her as President. Incredible.

She cannot win because a majority of Americans have enough judgment to keep her out, and she would collapse under the scrutiny of a Presidential campaign.

But it still leaves the question of why so many people (tens of millions) think she could/should run this country. While you have extremists on both sides who are attracted to the most strident partisans, the ultra conservatives are unique in their ability to suspend any standards in giving someone who shares their views support. Would Democrats rally around Sean Penn for President? Not on your life.

Until voters in the US demand higher standards from our politicians besides just channeling anger and telling us what we want to hear, we won't make progress in moving our country forward.

Only in america would we consider an over-hyped,over-rated mis-guided boob like Barack Obama suitable for the Presidency,but somehow have "doubts" about a woman who engineered one of the biggest political turn-arounds in American electoral history.Sarah Palin had far more executive experience than Obama had when he ran for the Presidency, and from what we've seen,continues to dominate him in the wisdom of their respective administrative decisions...Mr. Capehart WISHES a Romney GOP nomination for that would yet give us another term for the most incompetent Democratic President since Jimmy Carter.

Palin is after the money & the Republicans are giving it to her. She likes the attention but I think she realizes she's to stupid to be President. I'd give her about 18 more months & she'll be old news and she'll fade into the sunset lots more wealthy than she was before & laughing every step of the way.

It is often said that one particular attribute is skin deep, and in the case of Palin, we know that intelligence isn't even that deep. What she professes to have on that topic was clearly seen during the 2008 campaign and it wasn't as deep as her makeup.

Presidential candidate in 2012? Only if the world has disintegrated and she is standing on the last piece of it by herself. At that, she might lose to the last insect alive, which can, under Citizens United do as much as it pleases to campaign against anyone.

Palin will not run for president and hopefully Republicans are astute enough not to nominate her. She likes what she is doing and she likes the money - probably needs the money with a large family, a husband who works part time and a child that needs extra attention and care.

I do not dislike her to the extent that many seem to but she is not qualified to be president and she likes the notoriety and $$$ that come with what she is doing.

My daughter, like Kathleen Parker, dislikes Palin to the extent that I never mention her name as I do not want to hear the vitriol that comes from an otherwise gentle woman.

I don't think she will run; she likes the money and the attention and she definitely does not want the work of campaigning or to do the hard work of it. She will have her moment in the sun and fade as people catch on to her. She is definitely a vindictive woman as the people in Alaska learned and more will discover.

wasaUFO posts November 10, 2010 10:52 PM
"...I'd give her (Palin) about 18 more months & she'll be old news and she'll fade into the sunset lots more wealthy than she was before & laughing every step of the way."

I don't believe she will run either but I do believe she'll stay involved until Obama's second inauguration in January 2013.
Then she'll start a new round of hate on fox.

Mr. Capehart, getting in the middle of catty skirmish is not becoming. Palin is where she is because folks accept her, for better or worse, being visible; and media, mainstream or not, project her on a screen much like an old drivein theater. Amusing is the comments on this article just a catty and focusing on presidential aspirations for an election years away. Whether she eventually decides to run then...today it is so irrelevant. Surely there is more relevant issues...today!

for once, Senator Collins, you & me agree on something, though for far different reasons.

get the message: Sarah Palin is not only NOT going to "make a run for" the WH in 2012 but she is also NOT "the leader" ot The TEA PARTY, either.
(The TEA PARTY has NO "leader", unless we all are "leaders". = we "regular folks" are so distrustful of "authority" that the vast majority of local/regional/state TP groups have NO "officers".)

Sarah is very WELCOME to speak at any rally, as she draws a crowd wherever she goes, BUT she is just another member of the TEA PARTY movement & really no more special to us than any number of other Tea Partiers. = virtually every member of the movement has talents that are "in demand" in the execution of the many responsibilities that it takes to make a citizen's movement "work".
(as one of the "appointed spokespersons" of our county's group, IF i had to pick one person that "we just can't do without" it would be "Miss Lottie" T. D__________, a retired elementery school teacher from the county, who is in charge of "arrangements" for our local group; "Miss Lottie" has freely given HUNDREDS of HOURS of free labor to the TP movement in the last 18 months. ---> thankfully, i don't have to decide between "Miss Lottie" & "Sarah", as we would, as a movement, be LESS without EITHER lady!)

Palin will not run for president and hopefully Republicans are astute enough not to nominate her; Only in America could Sarah Palin be a serious Presidential candidate; She likes the attention but I think she realizes she's to stupid to be President; It is often said that one particular attribute is skin deep, and in the case of Palin, we know that intelligence isn't even that deep; Please deliver us from evil!!!; She is definitely a vindictive woman as the people in Alaska learned and more will discover; Then she'll start a new round of hate on fox...

Palin will not run for president and hopefully Republicans are astute enough not to nominate her; Only in America could Sarah Palin be a serious Presidential candidate; She likes the attention but I think she realizes she's to stupid to be President; It is often said that one particular attribute is skin deep, and in the case of Palin, we know that intelligence isn't even that deep; Please deliver us from evil!!!; She is definitely a vindictive woman as the people in Alaska learned and more will discover; Then she'll start a new round of hate on fox...

The idea that Palin will duck a run for the White House because it will cost her money doesn't even pass the laugh test.

Bill Clinton took down $45,000,000 in speaking engagements alone after his presidency.

If Palin runs on her own she has a better than fair chance of getting the nomination despite a cadre of opponents within the party. Currently she has a 92% approval rating among republicans and 46% nationwide.

Should she win the nomination she's got a film deal and at least one more book in her.

She she take down Obama in 2012 the windfall will dwarf anything she could make on the rubber-chicken circuit.

It has been both amusing and enlightening to see the devolution of thought as reflected in the left-wallowing media:

Subsequent to the Couric interview Palin was too dumb to have a shelf-life longer than 15 minutes on the political stage.

When she resigned her office in Alaska, she was branded by critics as being the portrait of political sloth, destined for an imminent
expulsion in shame to some political ice flow.

Now, that she is the animus of a rapidly growing and politically powerful grassroots movement and making piles of money she is not only ignorant but her greed for money will trump her political ambitions.

What utter nonsense.

Cartoongal's assertion that she will not run because she is too enamored of "celebrity" is a gem of incoherence. Am I the only one who thinks being the first woman nominated by her party will somehow still keep her on the front page?

Spencer7 clearly is the nom de plume of one of those South American miners who hadn't read a paper in nearly two months. As of Monday she trailed Obama by six
points in a head-to-head matchup after trailing him by 31 a few months ago.

WasaUFO's login name accounts for his addled opinion. It was quite likely "Wasabductedby aUFO".I'd bet my lungs he was one of the feckless dupes who just knew she was done after leaving the Governor'smansion.

Ronjeske would do well (if he has the requisite reading skills) to read the first few scenes of "Henry V". King Harry was just a punk who became king.His uncle thought he was still a moron but the archbishop of Cantebury new better. Harry's uncle basically told him he wasn't ready to sit at the table with the grownups to which he replied,

"We understand him well, How he comes over us with our wilder days, Not measuring what use we made of them."

Harry proved he was more than a punk; Palin will knock the "crowns" off the heads of the arogant who think her stupid.

Scar1: You're like the blind guy who feels the trunk of an elephant and says,'
"I see. An elephant is like a snake."

Kansas 28: Hillary made $11.4 million the year she ran. Try to come up with something even slightly original.

Withersbee: See Kansas 28 et. al.

And, lastly "Fear": your sign-in name says it all. A freebie: wherever you find fear, your find hate and guilt like the three witches of Macbeth.

fwiw, repeating hate-FILLED, prejudiced, IGNORANT, fact-FREE, stupidity (as you did twice, above) does NOT make the FOOLISHNESS of your post, by magic, become even HALF intelligent. - instead, it just exposes you to additional RIDICULE.

on her worst day, Sarah is at least twice as competent as BHO (the weakling, statist nitwit, "fully scripted reader of teleprompters" & not much else) is.

Sarah is NOT running for POTUS.- what part of that "statement of fact" do you NOT understand?

otoh, at this point it seems that Senator JIM DEMINT of SC will HUMILIATE "the current occupant of the WH", should BHO decide to run again.
(i strongly suspect that HRC will be the DIMocRATS 2012 candidate.)

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